O God and Father: How can the light of the sun pierce the terrible darkness of this day and its events? Your only Son, the true light, in the darkness of his ordeal, was pleased to embrace in his humanity the sufferings he could not endure in his divinity. And to what purpose, if not to prove that he considered us worthy of salvation! The crowds that had so admired him at first, were now overcome with aversion for him, in spite of the good he had done. In their outrage that the master of the sabbath should break the sabbath, they sneered at him and derided him. He suffered all sorts of indignities for us: He was spat upon and slapped and ridiculed. He was scourged by the soldiers and, finally, he was hanged on that tree of shame. And we, as usual, remain vacillating and ambivalent. Without your help, O Father, we can never see the honor that is ours in his voluntary shame.

By the grace and mercy and love for us of your only Son, with whom you are blest, together with your all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit: now and forever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

(A prayer of Fr. Laurence)